The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to providing a peripheral device expansion card as part of an information handling system.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some information handling systems may be provided with peripheral device expansion cards in order to allow peripheral devices to be connected to the information handling system. For example, the THUNDERBOLT® hardware interface developed by APPLE® Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., United States, and INTEL® Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., United States, allows for the connection of peripheral devices to information handling systems such as desktop computing systems, laptop/notebook computing systems, and/or a variety of other computing systems known in the art, and expansion cards have been developed to enable or expand the use of THUNDERBOLT® hardware interface technology on such computing systems. However, many conventional peripheral device expansion cards require, in additional to the connection of the peripheral device expansion card to a peripheral device connector on the motherboard, the use of a sideband cable that connects to controllers on the peripheral device expansion card and the motherboard in order to enable the functionality provided by the peripheral device expansion card.
To provide a specific example related to the THUNDERBOLT® hardware interface discussed above, conventional THUNDERBOLT® peripheral device expansion cards require a connection to a Peripheral Component Interconnect express (PCIe) connector on a motherboard of the computing system, as well as the use of a sideband cable may connect to both a controller on the conventional THUNDERBOLT® peripheral device expansion card (e.g., a THUNDERBOLT chipset) and to a motherboard connector (e.g., a THUNDERBOLT® “header”) that is coupled to a processing system on the motherboard, in order to enable THUNDERBOLT® hardware interface functionality for devices coupled to peripheral device connectors (e.g., DisplayPort connections and/or Universal Serial Bus (USB) type-C connectors) provided on the conventional THUNDERBOLT® peripheral device expansion card. The need to utilize such sideband cables increases the cost and complexity of enabling or expanding the use of THUNDERBOLT® hardware interface technology on a computing system, and is subject to user errors such as, for example, neglecting to utilize the sideband cable (i.e., because the user is unaware that a sideband cable is required, as such requirements are outside the norm of most expansion cards), or damage that can occur from attempting to connect the sideband cable to the wrong type of connector. Furthermore, the current implementation of sideband cables with conventional THUNDERBOLT® peripheral device expansion cards has dictated the provisioning of a single THUNDERBOLT® header on the motherboard of conventional computing systems, which has effectively limited the number of THUNDERBOLT® peripheral device expansion cards that may be used with such computing systems to one, thus limiting the number of peripheral devices that may be coupled to those computing systems.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved peripheral device expansion card system.